


I'm Not Afraid of My Daughter's Teacher

by kokarona



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Evil Shino, Fluff, Gen, Horror, Naruto Being a Not-So-Great Dad, Parallel Universes, Sasuke Being a Good Dad, Uchiha family, Unresolved Trauma, insect phobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokarona/pseuds/kokarona
Summary: Prompt: Canon DivergenceSasuke learns that his precious Sarada's Academy teacher is none other than Shino Aburame, and he wonders who in the world was stupid enough to put a man like that in charge of children.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25
Collections: Written stories for Shino Week 2021





	I'm Not Afraid of My Daughter's Teacher

**Author's Note:**

> I took a brief break from Swallowtail stuff to scribble out an entry for Shino Week. All of Shino's bugs and abilities in here are various degrees of canon (anime, side novels, etc.). I may have put in a little too much father-daughter fluff for a Shino-focused prompt, but it is what it is.

Sasuke came back from his investigative mission in a parallel dimension at around 5 in the afternoon. He had not found any new information on the Otsutsuki clan, but he had witnessed something even worse: an alternate timeline in which he and Sakura divorced, and Sarada grew up wearing a green spandex jumpsuit and calling Rock Lee "Papa." Truly, that was a nightmare dimension.

He rushed immediately home – not because he was jealous or thought that Rock Lee had a chance of stealing _his_ Sakura – but because he was hungry and in the mood for his wife's home cooking. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived at his apartment, Sakura and Sarada were already walking out the door in matching red dresses.

Sarada spotted him first. She blessed him with a dimpled smile. "Hi Papa! How was your mission?"

"Fine." To Sakura, he asked, "Where are you two headed?"

"To the Academy," his wife explained. "It's Parent-Teacher Night."

Sarada grabbed his good hand. "You're just in time to join us!"

Hours of small talk with strangers sounded like the worst possible way Sasuke could spend his night. Thankfully Sakura covered for him. "Your father's tired from his mission, honey. We should let him rest."

"Please, Papa? You don't have to stay long." Sarada gave Sasuke puppy dog eyes – a dangerous technique she'd inherited from her mother. "Can't you at least meet Shino-sensei?"

"Is she your teacher?"

"Sensei's a guy. He's part of the Aburame clan, so he's a noble, like you!"

It took Sasuke a moment to process Sarada's words. Shino Aburame was...her Academy teacher? No. That made no sense. Shino was too strong to work at the Academy. His kikaichu could kill a grown man in under a minute.

Sasuke knew this because he once watched one of his alternate selves become bug food. To be fair, that version of himself had murdered Shino's older brother. Far be it from Sasuke to deny someone revenge for their family. Nevertheless, the image of his own body shriveled up like a juiced orange haunted Sasuke for a long time.

If this Shino cultivated his other clan specialties, like the flesh-eating kidaichu, venomous kochu, or god forbid, the nano-sized rinkaichu, then he was even deadlier. The Aburame and his hive were too dangerous to be within 100 yards of children, let alone in charge of them. "That's a joke right?" he asked Sakura.

"Um...no? Shino Aburame really is her homeroom teacher."

"Since when?" Sasuke snapped. How could she not tell him about this?

"Since always." His wife laughed. "Darling, I know you're not in town very often, but you shouldn't be _this_ out of the loop."

"How did someone like _him_ become a teacher?"

Sarada immediately jumped to her teacher's defense. "Papa, you shouldn't talk about Shino-sensei like that. I know he can be silly sometimes, but he's reliable when it counts."

Silly? Shino? "Are we talking about the same person who blew off his opponent's arms during the chuunin exams?"

Sarada looked utterly confused. "Who...what?"

His wife had the decency to look sheepish. "Yes, you are." She leaned into his ear and whispered, "But Shino's mellowed out a lot since we were younger. He's really good with kids."

"That's hard to believe."

"Do you and Shino-sensei not get along?" his daughter asked.

That was a surprisingly tricky question to answer. Sasuke had encountered several versions of Shino on his missions, but he had trouble remembering the last time he'd spoken to this timeline's Shino. Was it...the chuunin exams? No, surely they'd interacted since then. The war, maybe? He vaguely remembered seeing Shino take down one of the Ten-Tail's clones by having his bugs eat it from the inside out. But Sasuke couldn't remember the last time he had a conversation with the Aburame, or whether this version's Shino liked or disliked him.

"I don't know. We haven't spoken in years."

"Then what's the problem?"

"There isn't one." Sasuke didn't have any excuse to distrust this timeline's Shino. But that didn't mean he trusted the Aburame either, especially around his precious daughter. "You know what? I will go to this Parent-Teacher Night."

Sakura's eyes widened. "Really?"

Sarada latched onto his arm. "Yes! Thank you, Papa! It'll be fun, I promise."

#

The Academy was much larger than it had been when Sasuke was a kid. The once-humble block of bricks was now a three-story academy with several wings. Someone had decorated the main building with red and yellow banners, and a column of balloons led the way to the double doors.

Choji and his family waved to them from across the street. As Sarada ran up to chat with the Akimichi girl, a thought occurred to Sasuke. "Naruto's boy is in Sarada's class too, isn't he?"

Sarada smirked. "Yes. So are Ino and Shikamaru's boys."

"They all trust a rival clan with their heirs?"

"Of course! Shino's a good teacher." Sakura put her hands on her lean hips. "What's your problem with him?"

He tried to backtrack. "Nothing. I wasn't trying to insult him."

"Sasuke..." Sakura warned him with a _talk-now-or-else_ tone of voice.

"Okay, okay." Sasuke made sure his daughter was out of earshot before answering. "The truth is...this is the only timeline in which Shino stays here and serves Konoha."

"So? You've told me before that there aren't many peacetime versions of Konoha out there. It makes sense Shino would still be on the field in most of them."

"No, I mean this is the only timeline where he isn't a fugitive. Or a Root operative. Or a mass murderer."

Sakura stared at him for a few seconds, then slowly covered her mouth. "He...no way." She looked at the Academy building, then back at him. "No! He can't be evil in all of them."

"I didn't say he was always evil. But he is always dangerous."

"But he's so good to Sarada. And he's only a chuunin!"

"I'm a chuunin too."

"You know what I'm saying."

"Well, what _I'm_ saying is that after Orochimaru and Danzo, Shino is the one who has killed the most Sasukes." Three, to be exact.

One had his life force sucked dry by kikaichu. The bugs had swarmed him, piling on so thick that the body could no longer be seen. He'd writhed and screamed on the ground, but his voice was quickly muffled when the bugs poured into his mouth. The screaming stopped after a minute, and when the bugs left his corpse, the body looked dry and hollow.

The second doppelganger was already dead when Sasuke found him. A helpful Not-Sai and Not-Ino had informed Sasuke that his other self was assassinated by Danzo's men. A rare venom had been injected into the back of his neck, causing his body to flood the lungs with saliva and phlegm. He'd basically drowned on land.

The third timeline was the Worst Timeline, on account of 30% of the human population being dead. That version of Shino had followed much the same path as Sasuke: a lone survivor of a clan genocide who swore vengeance against the world. But unlike this timeline, there had been no plucky Naruto to stop him. Shino had successfully assassinated all five major kage, eliminated anyone who opposed him, and set himself up as the world's not-so-benevolent tyrant.

The blood left Sakura's face. "You're...you're saying he's stronger than you?"

Sasuke bristled. "No. Obviously I'm stronger than any Aburame." The only reason Shino had succeeded in taking over the world when Sasuke couldn't was because Naruto had been dead in that universe. Plus, the nano-sized rinkaichu could slaughter a small town in a day, which made the whole world domination process unfairly efficient.

"Just because he could beat the other versions of myself doesn't mean he could beat me." Sasuke had nothing to fear from this or any other Shino. "I'm just concerned for Sarada's sake," he insisted.

His wife sighed. "Darling, _our_ Shino is harmless. I promise."

"If you say so."

#

Sasuke regretted coming to Parent-Teacher Night as soon as he walked through the doors. Hundreds of strangers crowded the halls, their brats sprinting underfoot like yappy little dogs. The walls were covered in ugly art projects, and parents cooed over the drawings like they were in a museum. A few of the adults gave him cold glares, but it was unclear whether they resented the presence of an Uchiha or if they were simply offended that he showed up in dirty mission clothes.

Sasuke and Sakura wandered over to some kind of bake sale full of overpriced brownies and cookies. Sakura immediately abandoned him to go chat with Ino. Sasuke brought no money, so he just stood there while some purple-haired teacher (Anko, her nametag said) pestered him to "try the snickerdoodles. They'll change your life."

His daughter rescued him by tugging his sleeve and asking, "Papa, do you want to see my classroom? We have a bunch of death trap demonstrations."

"Death trap demonstrations?" Sasuke scowled. If Shino was putting his daughter at risk in the name of testing out traps, then so help him, he would kill that man with a flyswatter.

She shyly fidgeted with her glasses. "I mean, they're dioramas, so they're not big enough to actually kill anyone. They're nothing like what you must be used to, but they're fun to look at! And I worked hard on mine..."

"I'd love to."

Sarada beamed. She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the halls like a little girl. A few fathers who were being ignored by their preteen daughters watched them jealously. That alone made coming here worth it.

She led him to a square room on the second floor. Each desk hosted three wooden dioramas. Sasuke recognized Hinata and one of Naruto's clones circling the room, but the rest of the people in here were strangers to him. He saw glimpses of a few men who might be Shino, but it was hard to tell in the crowd.

No sooner did Sasuke step into the room when a shuriken-sized swarm of bugs rushed him. He jumped out of the way, breaking contact with his daughter. He was halfway through a series of hand seals when he realized the swarm was hovering in place. A sheet of paper hung from a hundred tiny claws. The bugs all faced Sasuke in an unblinking stare, as if they were waiting for him to respond.

Sarada gave him a confused, slightly disappointed look. "Papa, you aren't scared of bugs, are you?" A few parents watched him curiously.

"Don't be ridiculous." Sasuke snatched the paper and read its contents. It was a map of the room, labeling where each student's diorama was placed. The swarm retreated, grabbed another map from the basket, and handed it to a couple behind him, who accepted it without surprise. "Your project is in the back, right? Let's see it."

They climbed to the top tier of desks. On his way up, Sasuke saw a wooden doll hanging from a net, another doll trapped in a net, and a trebuchet for some reason. Sarada's project was much more intricate. She'd cut a forest out of cardboard and added green paper as leaves. Subtle, thin wires ran between each tree. The empty clearing in the middle featured a red button.

"Here, I'll set it up for you. You take the criminal here," Sarada explained, grabbing a wooden doll full of miniature divots. She attached a wire hook to the doll. "And you lower him into the clearing." She placed the doll gently on the bulls-eye, then snatched the hook away. The button sank down, and Sasuke heard a light humming under the diorama. The wires shivered. Suddenly six sewing needles shot out of the trees and skewered the doll. "Ta-da!"

Sasuke smiled. His baby girl was growing up to be a brilliant assassin. "Yours is the best," he informed her.

Sarada was gleefully explaining how the project worked when Naruto shouted across the room, "Damn it, Boruto!" 

With the Sharingan activated, the following scene played out in slow motion. A storm of purple pellets exploded from Boruto's diorama. Naruto's clone disappeared on contact. Temari shielded her son and husband by unfolding her fan, letting purple ink splatter harmlessly on the paper. A young boy dressed like Kakashi cowered in place. A tall, pale man wearing a visor used the body-flicker technique to appear in front of the student.

Sasuke stepped in front of his daughter and knocked the pellets away with his hand. Apparently one of them ricocheted, because Sarada cried, "No! My criminal! He's purple now!"

Boruto glared at the column of smoke where his dad had been. He was much more upset about Naruto disappearing than the chaos he'd caused. A flustered Hinata grabbed his shoulder and cried, "Boruto, how could you? You promised your father there would be no pranks tonight!"

"And the shitty old man promised he'd be here in person," the boy shot back. "You wouldn't have believed he was lying unless I proved it."

"Don't talk about your father that way! I'm sure he had a good reason," Hinata argued.

"Yeah, I'm sure whatever ribbon he's cutting his super important," Boruto muttered. "If the Hokage doesn't bother to keep his promises, why should I?"

Many of the parents and kids gave Boruto dirty looks. The situation reminded Sasuke of his own school days, when everyone would yell at Naruto after an annoying (but harmless) prank. He almost felt bad for the brat.

A light, buzzing voice announced, "Goodness. Am I the only person who got hit? That's embarrassing."

The man in the visor lifted his arms to showcase his shirt. The back half was forest green, while the front dripped with purple ink. Sasuke couldn't see the man's expression from behind, but his posture was relaxed, almost deliberately casual.

Boruto's frown turned into a wide, self-satisfied grin. "Sensei! You're soaked!" He cried in glee. The other kids giggled.

Hinata rushed to grab the man a roll of paper towels. "I am so, so sorry."

"It's fine. To be honest, I'm impressed Boruto managed to make an explosion at this scale with such tiny diorama pieces." The man began wiping himself off, but each paper towel came back drenched.

"Does that mean I get extra credit?" asked Boruto. 

"Don't push it," the man deadpanned. "If you all will excuse me, I need to go clean myself off." He turned around, and Sasuke finally recognized the man as Shino Aburame. His hair was longer and smoother than Sasuke remembered, tied up in a top knot. The jacket was also unique to this dimension, colored a cheerful green with cartoonish beetles as buttons. 

But that visor? Sasuke remembered that visor all too well. It had been plastered on every poster and every statue in the Worst Timeline. Those three neon lines had been synonymous with death. Sasuke vividly remembered his last moments in that dimension.

He'd been chatting with a wealthy collector in the Land of Bamboo. She'd had some interesting scrolls depicting legends about the Otsutsuki clan. Sasuke had been about to pay for them when the attack hit. It started as a shimmery violet haze in the sky, sinking slowly down toward the bamboo buildings. A bell rang, and the villagers poured into the streets. Sasuke watched from the second-story window as people tossed their belongings into carts and sprinted away from the cloud.

Most of the villagers were too late. The rinkaichu descended upon them, latching on to any exposed flesh. A single rinkaichu was invisible to the naked eye, but together, they gave their victim's skin a shimmery, translucent coat of violet. Then parts of the villager's arms and faces just started...disappearing. It was like their bodies were pencil drawings being erased from existence.

The entire village screeched in what looked like agonizing pain. Sasuke was distracted enough by the sound that he wouldn't have noticed his own danger if the collector hadn't shoved him on her way out of the room. His vision jostled, and he finally noticed a purple haze puddling into the room through the window seams. Apparently even the most air-tight windows couldn't stop nano-sized insects.

Sasuke might have been able to block the rinkaichu with his Susanoo, but since he'd found what he came for, he saw no need to risk his life for that particular experiment. Instead he grabbed the Otsutsuki scrolls and escaped into his home dimension, resolving to never, ever go back to that timeline.

It was surreal to watch the conquerer of the world get laughed at by a room full of children. Rather than command the crowd to part for him, Shino Aburame weaved his way around the guests, saying, "Excuse me. Pardon me. Don't mind that spot, I'll clean up the ink after you all go home." The dripping man bowed out of the classroom, and everyone immediately went back to their conversations.

Sarada sighed behind him. "Ugh, I can't believe our teacher was clumsy enough to get hit by a stupid prank. It's hard to imagine him being a ninja alongside you and Mom." Sasuke was a little disappointed in his daughter's lack of perception. Did she really think her teacher had gotten hit on accident? That whole show was obviously meant to draw everyone's attention off Boruto. Why Shino would make a fool of himself for the brat's sake, Sasuke wasn't sure, but that didn't matter. His daughter's teacher was wearing a mass murderer's trademark visor, and he needed to understand why.

He picked up the ink-stained doll from his daughter's diorama. "Sarada, stay here. I'll wash this for you."

"Really? Thank you, Papa!"

Sasuke pushed his way through the crowd and out of the room. He didn't see Shino, but the purple drops on the floor made tracking the Aburame easy. Sasuke followed the dots down the hall, around the corner, and into an unused portion of the school.

He found Shino in some kind of art room full of amateur self-portraits. The Aburame had taken off his coat and was rinsing it in a paint-stained sink. He had on a sleeveless black undershirt that covered him from waist to chin. Sasuke noticed with some satisfaction that he was able to get halfway across the room before Shino noticed him. "Uchiha. Can I help you?"

He held up Sarada's stained doll. "I'm here to clean up my daughter's project." He turned on the sink next to Shino's and let the water wash off the ink. As he rinsed the wooden doll, Sasuke thought about what approach he should take. Interrogating the Aburame with genjutsu seemed like the most straightforward option, but Sasuke wasn't sure if the visor protected Shino from the Sharingan or not. Maybe he could rip off the visor?

Sasuke looked over to see if the visor had a visible hinge, only to find the Aburame staring expressionly back at him. Neither said anything. The only sound in the room was the wasted water pouring down the sinks.

"I'm Shino," the Aburame told him. He was still talking in that light, buzzing tone, but Sasuke could hear a current of irritation underneath.

Sasuke turned off his faucet. "What?"

"You've been away for a long time, so you probably don't recognize me. I'm Shino Aburame," the man explained. He shut off his own faucet and added, "We went to the Academy together."

"I know who you are."

"Oh." The Aburame resumed washing his stained jacket in the half-full sink. "The way you were staring at me, I thought you'd forgotten."

The awkwardness of the situation threw Sasuke off balance. He'd never been good with small talk, so he got straight to the point. "What's the visor for?"

"Protection. An Aburame's vision is especially sensitive to bright light."

"If that's true, how come the rest of your clan wears regular sunglasses?" Sasuke asked.

If Sasuke weren't an Uchiha, he would have missed the slight twitch in Shino's hands. "My vision is worse than most."

"Because of the rinkaichu?"

Shino's head snapped up. His face was blank, but Sasuke could hear an angry hum emanating from Shino's body. When he spoke, his voice was an octave lower than the airy tone he'd used around the kids. It was the deep, monotone voice Sasuke remembered. "How do you know about them?"

Sasuke chose his next words carefully. If this Shino really did have the rinkaichu, he didn't want to provoke him unnecessarily. "I saw you use them in another timeline."

"In what context?"

"There's only one context you could use a weapon like that in."

Shino paused to process this. "That other Shino must have hurt quite a lot of people for you to be so worried."

"Do you have the rinkaichu or not?" Sasuke snapped.

Shino resumed washing his jacket in the sink. He pretended to act casual, but Sasuke saw a few kikaichu slip out of his pant leg. He was prepared to fight. "That's clan business. All you need to know is that they won't be used again."

"It is my business. If my daughter is in your care, then I need to be sure I can trust-"

"Don't you dare." The flat monotone had disappeared, stashed in the same hideaway that Shino's bright, child-friendly buzz had gone. This voice – his true, unfiltered voice, Sasuke suspected – was raw with years of restrained bitterness. "You are the last person who should ever question my loyalty to Konoha."

Typical. Everybody went for the traitor card when Sasuke backed them into a corner. "That's different. _Your_ clan isn't dead in this timeline."

"No, but Torune is."

That name carried more weight than the rest of Shino's words combined. It was a familiar name, one that Sasuke had heard long ago. Torune. To-ru-ne.

Oh. Right. That was Shino's brother – the one Other Sasuke had killed. The one Shino avenged by turning Other Sasuke's body into a spent husk. He'd assumed the brother didn't exist in this timeline. Damn it. 

"Good. I see you remember," said Shino, somehow seeing Sasuke's expression through the visor without lifting his head. "I would have been angry if you didn't."

"I didn't kill Torune," Sasuke insisted.

"I know." Shino's spidery fingers squeezed the fabric of his jacket. Diluted ink spilled out of the fabric like blood. "But you were fighting alongside the people who did. If you hadn't attacked Danzo that day, Obito would have never had the chance to kidnap his bodyguards. My brother would still be alive."

Wait...so Torune had been one of Danzo's men? Not just a random Aburame? That meant the Shino who assassinated him with the kochu bugs had also been motivated by revenge. Actually, there were probably a lot of versions of Shino that wanted him dead. Including this one.

An apology wouldn't work. Too much time had passed since Torune's death. The gesture would feel so hollow as to be insulting. Sasuke was honestly sorry though. Not for killing Danzo – he'd deserved to die, and nothing Naruto said would ever change Sasuke's mind about that. But he knew what it felt like to lose family and be told that they deserved to die. That your anger was too much and should be hidden so that it didn't make those around you uncomfortable.

"Why haven't you tried to kill me yet?" he asked. It was a dumb, self-sabotaging question. But Sasuke had nearly ended the world before realizing that murder wouldn't make him feel better. Shino had never lifted a finger to him before now. Why?

"I couldn't kill one of the three sannin."

"Yes you could. You've murdered me in at least three other timelines. In very sadistic ways, I might add."

"Really?" The Aburame sounded disturbingly pleased to hear that.

"What makes this timeline different?" Sasuke pressed.

Shino lifted his jacket out of the sink. The fabric still had a few purple smudges, but it was presentably clean. He took his time wringing out the rest of the water. Just when Sasuke was about to question him a third time, Shino answered, "You weren't around."

Sasuke didn't have any response to that.

Shino continued. "I know I ought to say something like 'We need to break the cycle of hatred' or 'Torune would have wanted me to forgive you.' But the truth is, if you and I had crossed paths in the first few years after the war, I probably would have lost control of my hive and attacked you."

Well. Sasuke appreciated the honesty, at least. "What about now? Do you still want to fight me?"

"No." Shino snapped his jacket in the air, ridding it of any last droplets, then slipped his arm in one of the sleeves. "I have better things to do with my time. Like helping my clan. And teaching." His visor gleamed in the fluorescent light. "And making sure no more kids end up like you and Torune."

He buttoned up his jacket, then walked toward the door. "Now if you are done with this interrogation, I have to go make sure the Hokage's son hasn't created any more explosions."

The Aburame had his hand on the doorknob when Sasuke called out to him. "Thank you."

Shino turned back to look at him. "For not killing you?"

The implication that Shino could kill him rankled Sasuke, but he swallowed his pride and explained, "For making sure my daughter doesn't end up like me."

"I don't help Sarada for your sake."

"I know." Sasuke took a deep breath, then admitted, "You're a good man, Shino Aburame. I'm glad Sarada has you as a teacher."


End file.
